Days of Fire commentary
This page is for commentary on and regarding Days of Fire. Click here for additional commentaries. Springtime of the World :1 Here, God (depicted as female), the elohim (angels), and the world they created are all already in existence together as the narrative begins. :2 Man (Adam) and Woman (presumably Eve in this context) are created by God and the angels as a gift for one another. :3 God orders the angels to betray Her, forcing choice upon them for the first time. This may well be the first of many signs that Lucifer is an unreliable narrator: this frames his subsequent rebellion as the ultimate act of loyalty. :4 Four angels (Ahrimal, Belial, Lailah and Usiel) gather, and the Light (Lucifer) appears before them. Ahrimal and Belial join with Lucifer; Lailah and Usiel remain loyal to God. :5 Lucifer demands that Man, Woman, and their two sons choose sides. Adam, Eve, and Caine choose to side with Lucifer, while Abel remains loyal to God. :6 The Fall, both of Man and of Lucifer's rebellious angels. The Age of Wrath begins. Summer of the World :7 At the start of the Age of Wrath, two-thirds of angels and one-quarter of humanity remain loyal to God; the rest are with Lucifer. The reference to humanity at large implies that the human race has already begun to multiply beyond just Adam, Eve, Caine and Abel. :8 Strife from the War creates discord among humanity and in Creation as a whole for the first time. :9 All of humanity suffers in this new world. Those loyal to Lucifer suffer all the more for knowing that they have left God's grace, while those who remain loyal are comfortably ignorant of their own suffering. By now, humanity has grown to the extent that there are tribes of both loyal and rebellious mortals. :10 Caine makes a gift to God; the gift is the sacrifice of his brother Abel, and the act of sacrifice is the first murder. :11 God rejects Caine's gift, and in turn, he rejects Her. As Caine speaks against Her, both humans and angels listen. Through him, they learn of deception and murder. :12 Having learned deception from Caine, rebel angels demand that humans pay homage to them instead of God. They call themselves gods, and earn the epithet of demons. :13 The angels-turned-demons usurp the Lores of the loyal angels by devouring them. :14 God sends his angels to forgive Caine, but he refuses. Caine's rejection of God's messengers bars him from the sun's light, from peace, and from death. :15 The demons demand homage from humanity, as they slaughter one-tenth of the host of angels in their greed for the angels' Lores. :16 God's angels rout the demons, slaughtering an equal number of the Fallen and punishing their human followers in turn. :17 God creates new forces of fire, wind, and the wild to seek out and wipe out the demons. (Possibly the origin of the Malhim, or of the imbued hunters, mages, the Changing Breeds, or some other force.) :18 The demons, having been defeated, create the Shadowlands as a refuge for those human souls that had been forcibly disembodied by the Fallen. Autumn of the World :19 The demons are cursed by God, and the Abyss is created as their prison. :20 The angels leave the human world, and one-fifth of the host have Fallen and been imprisoned; humanity begins to forget their false gods. The numbers of those trapped in the Abyss are three higher than the previous numbers would suggest, as three loyal angels (seen again later, in verse 85) were also bound in the Abyss. :21 Humans eventually rediscover and choose to invoke the names and powers of the angels and demons. :22 Caine, seeing the angels and demons gone, sets himself up as a king with his get of thirteen at his side. :23 Some humans, upon death, choose not to go on to the unknown afterlife but instead linger in the Shadowlands, trapped in what had been initially made to be a refuge. :24 The souls in the Shadowlands are influenced by Oblivion, which God had given as a final respite to the Fallen; this influence splits the soul into two parts, the Psyche and Shadow. :25 Caine summons wraiths from the Shadowlands. Others come to learn how to summon up those from the Shadowlands and, in time, from the Abyss. :26 The first five Earthbound, the Archdukes, are summoned from the Pit unto the Earth. Caine raises up his great city; when his children go to war, he curses them (presumably this is the origin of the clans' weaknesses). Gaia creates or calls upon the Garou in response to these threats, but the werewolves suffer without the sisters they slew (presumably the other fera they slew in the War of Rage; the language used here also deliberately invokes the Lunar Exalted having lost their Solar companions). Mankind goes to war with itself. :27 The debasement of life and death (either a reference to necromancy or to the genesis of Spectres), hunger turned to rage (Cainites' frenzied Hunger), and the corruption of the highest arts (infernalism, possibly referring to the genesis of the Nephandi) all prompt God to inundate the Earth with the Deluge. :28 The various peoples scattered across the Earth recover: first the Jews under Noah's guidance, then the aboriginal Australians, then the Native Americans, then the Asians of the Middle Kingdom, and finally the Africans. Nearly all of the knowledge of antediluvian humanity has been lost. :29 Democracy first flourishes in ancient Greece, but only for men. :30 Romulus and Remus, suckled by a wolf-mother, form the founding myth of Rome, whose empire grows to encompass the lands of the Jews and parts of Africa. :31 Jesus comes from the Jews and preaches what becomes the Christian faith. The bitter enemy who converts might be the apostle Paul, or it might be the Roman Empire itself, which converts to Christianity. :32 The empires of China grow greater than Rome, and remain greater as Rome falls and the Dark Ages and the First Great Maelstrom begin. :33 Mohammed and the religion of Islam rise from the traditions of the Jews and Christians. (In Islam, there are five pillars, not seven, as is named here. This could be a somewhat veiled reference to the first sura of the Koran, which is seven lines long and which states the fundamental tenets of the faith, or it could be a reference to the seven pillars of Ismailism, or it could be an allusion to something else entirely.) :34 The Second Great Maelstrom rises out of the land of the dead. The two who embrace the curse of Caine during this time are presumably Tremere and Augustus Giovanni; this might simply refer to their respective Embraces, or to the diableries that they committed on Saulot and Cappadocius, respectively. :35 This is likely a reference to the Anarch Revolt, in which the young vampires rise up against the old. The reference to weakness in fourteen would refer to the fact that thin-blooded vampires are more frequent in the fourteenth generation. Alternately, it could reference the diableries committed by Tremere and Augustus, as mentioned above; both slain Antediluvians linger on in some form, and either one could be the extra one who brings the number of Antediluvians up from thirteen to fourteen. In this case, Saulot would be the better fit of the two, as he is still capable of acting as an Antediluvian. :36 Celibate priests form the Inquisition, and threaten the good and the wicked alike. :37 The Renaissance arises from the long shadow of the Dark Ages. The man with the glass eye is likely Galileo using a telescope; the man with the silver nose is Tycho Brahe; and the astronomically-inclined wise fool who is their contemporary is presumably Johannes Kepler. The tribe they unwittingly inspire is the Order of Reason (later the Technocracy). :38 European sailors arrive in the Americas, bringing with them plagues, horses, gunpowder, and vermin. :39 The destruction of the Native American empires causes the Third Great Maelstrom, and the transatlantic African slave trade begins. :40 During the Industrial Revolution, the Order of Reason begins to successfully co-opt the dogmatism of the three Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) for its own ends. :41 Europeans travel east, using opium and alcohol as tools to force China and the Aboriginal Australians into submission. :42 This is allusion to what is to come, particularly the return of the Fallen. The children of the world referenced here may be the younger and more modern nations, such as the United States. The reference to those who do not act until acted upon may also reference the USA, such as when the United States is forced out of isolationism in the two World Wars. Alternately, this could be an oblique reference to the Anarch Revolt, or to the formation of the Council of Nine Mystic Traditions under the onslaught of the Order of Reason, although both of those already happened much earlier in the internal chronology of the stanzas of Days of Fire. Winter of the World :43 The two Ministers are the only angels that remain outside of Heaven, the Fallen remain trapped in the Abyss, the Earthbound still slumber beneath the Earth, and Lucifer still wanders eternally. :44 The Order of Reason (which has probably become the Technocracy by this point), blinded by hubris, believes itself to have won the Ascension War against the nine Traditions. :45 This could refer to the Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, or the Victorian Age: all periods of time in which Westerners develop their own philosophies even as they dominate and exploit other cultures. :46 Humans have invented (among other things) airplanes, submarines, and motion pictures, but each achievement makes them seek out another, greater one. :47 Africa is continually looted and divided by Westerners, presaging the outbreak of World War I. :48 The Great War yields the Fourth Great Maelstrom, which is the greatest Maelstrom yet but will pale in comparison to the two yet to come. :49 America's intervention bring an end to the Great War, but millions die from the influenza pandemic that follows. :50 Nazi Germany begins World War II and the Holocaust; the Fifth Great Maelstrom begins. :51 Japan joins the Axis and invades China; Italy invades Africa in order to divide it up yet again. :52 America ends the war not with guns but with mastery of the atom; the Cold War begins. :53 The Berlin Wall is erected as America and the Soviet Union contend with one another. Joseph McCarthy presents his list of 57 Communists as the world lives in fear of a nuclear holocaust. :54 America fights Communists in Korea and/or Vietnam (this is most likely deliberately vague so that it alludes to both at once). Vampires glut themselves in the shadows, hidden by the Technocracy all the while. :55 The Technocracy follows every act of exploitation with a creature comfort to soothe the Masses, justifying itself all the while. :56 The Technocracy believes that it has conquered both emotions and the supernatural. The end of this may be a reference to the American flag being planted on the Moon. :57 Uncertain. Some annotators think that this might be a reference to Martin Luther King, or to the vampiric healer Saulot, who wears the face of his murderer Tremere in the modern nights. :58 The Mokolé, Garou, Ratkin, and Corax fear the portents of the incipient Apocalypse, while the Rokea simply prepare to endure it. :59 The Red Star wanders the sky of the spiritual world unseen to mortal eyes, a harbinger of things to come. This could also be meant as a reference to the wanderings of Caine or Lucifer. :60 Uncertain. :61 Uncertain. The "bear" was used as a reference to the Soviet Union earlier; possibly this is a reference to some event in Russia, such as the rise of Baba Yaga. :62 Uncertain. :63 Uncertain; this may simply be a metaphor, meant to apply to any who would resist the darkness. :64 The dread and anticipation of the Black Spiral Dancers, Marauders, and Spectres (or Nephandi) are to be fulfilled by the demise of the Black Hand. :65 Outcast vampires strike against their fellow Kindred; this may be a reference to the Anarch Revolt that established the Anarch Free State. The Traditions see the Technocracy's power calcify; there are only seven traditions in the time between the departure of the Solificati and Ahl-i-Batin and the defection of the Sons of Ether and Virtual Adepts from the Technocracy. The Garou Nation is marshaled together (possibly a reference to the crowning of Jonas Albrecht with the Silver Crown). :66 Uncertain. :67 Uncertain. :68 A reference to the lamp that, in several World of Darkness sources, was given to Constantine the Great when he converted to Christianity and brought the Roman Empire with him. This lamp - a piece of the sun granted to him by God - will be found by one of the imbued, possibly by Joshua Matthews (God45) as hinted at in the Time of Judgment news ticker. :69 The reference to the proud gatekeeper is uncertain, but is likely some figure related to the Underworld (such as the Halaku), as the Hives and Memory Towers of the Spectres are mentioned here. The seven lights could be the Sebettu emerging from the Abyss, in which case the eighth, secret light might be the Ministers and/or the Messengers, the three angels mentioned below in verse 85, or Lucifer himself. (The "proud gatekeeper" is a meta self-reference on the part of the book's author, Greg Stolze: "Gregory" means "watchman" and "Stolze" means "proud".) :70 The reference to hungry people of the wind is uncertain, but may be related to the Middle Kingdom in some way; this may simply be a poetic reference to the Kuei-jin. As Hong Kong is returned to China, the Kuei-jin move in to claim the city that has been returned to them from the grasp of the Kindred. :71 The Sixth Great Maelstrom erupts; ghosts are thrown from their graves into the Skinlands as the walking dead. The Messengers prepare to stir humanity against the monsters, even as Grandmother awakens. :72 The Ministers (the Scarlet Queen and the Ebon Dragon) begin to empower the imbued. :73 The Earthbound stir, awaiting the arrival of the Red Star and the coming of the Last Daughter of Eve (who may literally be the last human female, as implied by the reports in the Miller Dossier later in the book). :74 The Perfect Metis is born; it will either save or ruin the Garou before it is an adult. :75 War and strife continue to rock the Middle East. :76 The Ravnos Antediluvian awakens, and battles three bodhisattvas of the kuei-jin even as the Technocracy turns it solar mirrors against him. :77 Ravnos is destroyed, and the Ravnos clan turns on itself in an orgy of blood. :78 Probably referring to the projectors of the Orpheus Group, given the allusion to the Stormwall. "The Dark Mother" is normally a reference to Lilith; here, it might instead be a reference to Grandmother. :79 Uncertain. The turning millstone of souls might be the pigment cults of Grandmother's Spectres or even the Orpheus Group themselves. The "Blood Traitors" might be wraiths who have betrayed their kin, such as Orphan-Grinders or Shades. Taking the "blood" reference more literally, they might instead be vampires — either vampires in general or a specific treacherous group of them, such as the antitribu or the clans that descended from diablerie (Giovanni, Tremere, or Brujah). :80 In the Greek stronghold of the Orphic Circle, a great tree becomes home to a powerful Spectral force in the wake of the destruction of the True Black Hand, as seen in Hunter: The Walking Dead and Hunter: First Contact. :81 Lucifer appears over Los Angeles, as seen in Lucifer's Shadow: Tales of Fallen Angels and City of Angels. :82 The tree in the desert is Avitu, who sought to return humans to the innocence they possessed before the Fall, as depicted in the Trilogy of the Fallen. (This could instead be read as reference to the ghoul mages of House Tytalus as seen in Blood Treachery, who traded independence and dynamism in exchange for power to use against the Technocracy, but the next section continues from this verse and is an even more explicit reference to Avitu.) :83 Avitu is cut down by the angel Usiel, as seen in the Trilogy of the Fallen. :84 The Archdukes awaken in their reliquary prisons, and the rest of the Fallen are loosed from their Abyssal prison to inhabit mortal shells. :85 The three angels who were willingly imprisoned in the Abyss (Usiel and two others) are freed: Usiel is the Reaper of Souls, as depicted in Trilogy of the Fallen; the Angel of Pain is not depicted elsewhere; and the undetailed third demon is called Forguel, according to World of Darkness: Time of Judgment. :86 Vassago, the Seer of Scorn, has made pacts with two of the imbued in his quest to understand and corrupt them, as detailed in Hunter: Fall From Grace. The female imbued who Vassago uses here is Leaf Pankowski (Potter116), the second of the two "infernal" hunters he has claimed; his unlikely redeeming love does eventually occur, as seen in World of Darkness: Time of Judgment. :87 Presumably this is a metaphor for humanity (or just the supernaturals) giving up hope for the future in the face of the imminent end times. :88 This awakening of inner light could refer to the creation of a new wave (or new type) of imbued or Awakened. Regardless of their identity, their power poses a threat both to the demons and to humanity itself; the wayward hunters and extremist hunters could both easily fall into these categories. :89 As depicted later in the book's "Miller Dossier", the speed of light has begun to increase; reality has begun to move out of the bounds of the Technocracy's Consensus. :90 The Red Star becomes visible, and the Garou see it as the opening of the Eye of the Wyrm. Demons claim the most strong-willed as thralls; this may be another reference to the infernal extremists from Hunter: Fall From Grace. Ghosts and the walking dead increase in activity, possibly because of the decay or tearing of the Shroud. The living traveling to the depths of the Underworld is depicted in End Game, the final chapter in the Orpheus chronicle/metaplot. In the end, the World of Darkness will be revealed as it truly is for all to see, and humanity must make a final choice. Three Paths Through the Burning Forest :91 The end comes with the titular "days of fire". The transition from autumn to winter (a theme repeated here from the titles of the previous chapters of the book) may refer to the decline of the human race, or even to the coming Winter of the changelings. The last generations of humanity have one last chance to save their race as the world burns. :92 The fires that consume the world blind humanity to heavenly (or otherworldly) guidance; mortals must find their own way. :93 The "middle world" of humanity burns in fires from both heaven and earth. The fires lurking within the Earth could be the Earthbound (more explicitly alluded to in the next stanza), and the fires from the heavens could be the Fallen or even the angels. (The "above"/"below" references might instead be an occluded reference to the levels of the Umbra, though the language referring to fires from the earth seems too specific to refer to the Underworld.) :94 The Earth is made unstable (metaphorically or even literally), and the Earthbound within it are ready to give tainted guidance to humanity. :95 As humankind comes to a crossroads, they must resist both the urge to rise up against enemies that cannot be defeated and the urge to surrender to those enemies. The First Path The Second Path The Third Path Time Catches Fire: Images by August Bierce The Miller Dossier Director This section (as well as the REFINANCE NOW section, below) were originally encoded using a Grezst rolling cypher scheme. The decoded translations have been included here for you. Note that while capitalization has been added as appropriate, all spelling mistakes are intentional, as they were in the original document. : Babbit is acting very odd. I got a call from someone that I think is very Special Affairs. Maybe the person who stole the Latin fragment. Like you, he thinks Babbit has gone over, and he calls himself "The Throne of the Deepest Root". That, and other things he said, are references to old demonology texts — the kind of books no one finds on Amazon.com. Is he with you? I dont know who to believe. Babbit is acting odd. The man from stull is calling at hnne and he mentioned Vodantu. Is he with you? REFINANCE NOW AND S.A.V.E!!! :None of my contacts know anything about you, and no one had heard of this Deepest Root character. Did you try getting Babbit to the capitol? :be very careful, woodrow. both of us have seen terrible things working Special Affairs, but i think we just saw the coming attractions. Now the feature is playing. :I have believed in demons ever since I arrested Jane Inoue. Do you? :I dont know anything about 'Vodastu' and neither do my associatds but they believe Fhske is serving some entity called 'Vassago', also kmown as the Seer of Scorn. They dont speak his name out loud and they think Fhske wasnt his only servant. They sound crazy some times but Ive seen things I cant explain. We're trying to find Fiske and a dizmond necklace and two people — John Coaler and Leaf Pankowski. My associatds think those two are very important, that Vassago may be on the brink of taking them over, of consrolling humans directly. You know thatr possible. You saw it in Ohio. :Do you believe in demons? :M. -- :I got Babbit to the capitol and two days later he went on temporary administrative leave. Coincidence? Who can tell? I made contact with Madeline Mason. She is venq victory, as I suspected. But she had information about the books, solid stuff. She made a drop off in Barstow and I do not think I was followed. :I have spoken to the Deepest Root too, but I do not think I will again. :Imeres Pyros is starting to make too much sense and I do not like it. So much points to it being a hoax — for instance, the names "Yves Darra" and "Vera Sadry" are both anagrams for "adversary." If this is a hoax, it is the most insanely expensif, elaborate and intelligent hoax in history. :It almost makes more sense to believe the book is true. :Demons? I do not know. But believing in them is starting to make more sense too. See also * Book of Nod commentary * Erciyes Fragments commentary * Revelations of the Dark Mother commentary * Hunter: Apocrypha commentary Category:Demon: The Fallen Category:Commentary Category:Demon: The Fallen commentary